Le Cygne Endommagé
by whatsamatta
Summary: She would have been the most celebrated Ballerina of their generation, had the opportunity not been stolen from her. Of that he was certain. And that had he not been such a coward, life could have been easier for her as well. Unfortunately, one cannot go backward - only forward.


_**Disclaimer: No rights for**_ Leap! (Ballerina) _ **, in part or whole, belong to this author. Why did I stray into this area? I watched this movie and was entranced, even with all the glaring (and I do mean glaring) historical inaccuracies. I was going to let it go, but this story has been growing and evolving in my head everyday for several weeks. So why not write it down and share, yeah?**_

 _ **I tried to flesh out the characters and write this piece to where it can be read without watching the movie, if I fail I do not apologize, only recommend you watch the film and then read it again (happy face).**_

 _ **Also, historical note: Pedro is a reference to Pedro Gailhard (Pierre Samson Gailhard) who was a French opera singer and the theatre director from 1884-1891 and then 1893-1907. I envisioned this to take place in the ballpark of 1900.**_

~O~

He was astounded.

She took his breath away, sent his heart racing, stole the very thing in his bones that kept him upright. The flight of his senses that she inspired seemed to happen so naturally - he really shouldn't be so surprised by now. After all that had happened, he didn't think it ever could change.

As he watched her hobble about on the stage, broom in hand and familiar tune on her lips, he was taken back to a time long ago – some ten years at least – yet to that same stage. That same figure. Same tune. Life had been so cruel to her, they – he – had been so cruel to her. And yet here she remained, unflappable in the face of the malice that swarmed around her. It broke his heart.

And he knew that he deserved his heartache.

While she deserved the world.

~O~

She had known he was there. Well of course she had known, what did he think, she was born yesterday? No, no he wouldn't; they went back a long time, she and Louis Mérante. Far too long a time for him to think that she was not in tune to his presence.

Pausing in her sweeping for only a moment, she let herself fall back into familiar memories. Of a young ballerina who had the potential to be Prima – of red slippers standing out proudly, bravely, against pale legs and dark stage. Of a young man who worshiped her skills under the lights before the orchestra. Worshiped her body at night in the dorms when the Ballet Mistress was in bed asleep.

Life was funny, in a mean sort of way.

Back, before either had a chance to prove their worth but were well underway, he had seduced her. Or maybe she seduced him. Perhaps in reality they seduced and allowed themselves to be seduced by one another. In any case, they had a wonderful affair that, for her at least, made her feel as alive as being on the stage. A beautiful dalliance.

And what comes from dalliances and affairs and seduction?

Something that even now grieves her to dwell on.

It was here Odette's movements ceased, and Mérante took a half step forward should she need aide. However it was not needed, the years had made her stronger than that. Banishing the thoughts swirling around her mind, she steeled her will that no, she did not like children, and began sweeping once more.

Louis Mérante watched on quietly, wishing he knew some way she would let him in again.

~O~

Dirty. That was the very first thing he had thought when he first lay eyes on the young Mamselle Odette Baudin. Dirty and tall, not so much skinny as malnourished, but she had a pretty face. So ordinary in a poor sort of way. Certainly not worthy of the great Master Saint-Léon.

Beneath him, ultimately. And beneath the Opera House as far as he was concerned.

And yet when she danced – he understood why she was there the moment they shoved her on the stage to audition for a spot in the Ballet. Even with her total lack of technical knowledge and training, the sheer talent she had glowing beneath her skin was enough to bring the ballet teacher to tears.

Being from a poor family as she was, naturally she had no money to pay for her lessons, so an agreement was made between the school and her humble, underprivileged farmworker father. The school would train her, as well as provide room and board gratuitement – for free – and mold her into the Prima Ballerina she was so obviously destined to become. In exchange for this generous gift, the Opera House would retain thirty five percent of any wages she would receive.

So with a handshake her father had sold her to her dream, and while he left no richer he had one less mouth to feed and the comfort that she would be well taken care of, perhaps even be lucky enough to flourish.

Flourish she had, for a time.

She caught his eye – and he caught hers – and they quietly progress from acquaintances to friends. By the time they were fifteen they had become secret lovers, sneaking kisses in stairwells and caresses in shadows. Even now, if he closes his eyes he can still taste her soft skin. The scent of her hair deep in his nose, the feel of her supple body in his hands.

 _ **It**_ happened a few months after they began their secret little romance.

A group of them had been rushing down the steps of the dormitory when Regina – a ballerina with no talent but well-off parentage – got her gangly legs and big feet tangled with Odette's. It had been chaos those few terrifying moments when her lithe body went flying heels over head down the unforgiving stone steps.

After the doctor had been called and the crowd shooed away, he had lingered outside the girls' room and listened as she was told she may never walk again – let alone dance. Regina was ushered in to apologize – quite insincerely – to a quietly sobbing Odette. Eavesdropping alone Louis would have thought Regina tripped her on purpose, but who would do such a thing? Intentionally ruin not only someone's career, but their life as well? He was certain she could not have been so cruel.

Prognosis delivered, Monsieur Saint-Léon had a decision to make.

Clearly the poor girl could not dance again, being as she was now crippled for life. They could send her home to her family, but what of all the costs the school had incurred in her training, as well as feeding and housing her? They could never recoup the loss.

And so it was decided that Odette would recompense her debts to the school by working as its cleaner. She acquired a cane to help with her mobility, and quietly slipped into the shadows so unlike how she had come into the light.

To go from the toast of the school to its _filth_ was something not many could do, but she managed. Those who had been thought of as close friends and confidants now would not speak to her, treating her as if she were invisible. Shared jokes were now jokes at her expense, and Louis was ashamed to admit that he had joined in once or twice. They all feigned they did not know her, and as old blood moved out and new talent replaced it, it seemed as if she was being forgotten from the history of the Opera House.

The cruelty of her friends, however, did aide her in once sense. It gave her thick skin. The spiteful words and unfeeling actions hardened her heart, helped her find the strength within her to rise above it all. She held her head as was permitted of _servants_ while commencing with her work. Even taking on extra tasks, such as helping the Costume Master mend when he needed the help.

She even found second employment within Regina's household.

Regina, who had taken her career from her, and then squandered it when she became pregnant – quite unexpectedly for such a virtuous girl. Regina, who quickly left the ballet school to marry the son of a local Restaurateur and have a pale little bundle of blonde hair she could control, much as her own mother had done. Regina, who offered Odette a job and a place to sleep not so much out of the goodness of her heart, but more to keep her adversary under foot.

Regina, who perhaps was as cruel as Odette first thought when she arrived.

It was only later that he heard, quite by accident from a conversation between Odette and one of the stage hands, that she had been pregnant at the time of her accident. Naturally, that was lost as well.

It crushed him to know that she did not tell him; that he had pushed her away to the place where she thought he wouldn't care. How she carried the weight of it on her own.

~O~

Standing off stage while Felicie made her debut as Clara, Louis Mérante again only had eyes for Odette Baudin. Her eyes held so much hope and promise for the redhead before her, a girl whom she had become a surrogate mother and who helped fill the void within her. She tried to fight off the spiteful feeling of victory that it was her daughter – _hers_ \- and not Regina's that was dancing tonight.

After ten years of cleaning for that wretched woman and enduring all her nasty quips and garnished wages and hard labor – watching Felicie live her dream felt like the sweet release of revenge. The thought both terrified and invigorated her.

A strong hand slipped into the one not holding the cane, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Louis. All this time and her heart still raced at the sight of him. It took her to a memory of him when they were young; her first glimpse of him.

He was tall and muscular, and at thirteen stood proudly over the stage like he owned it. She remembered thinking he looked like a bird, swanning about on the stage and displaying his plumage as a peacock. He was arrogant.

Handsome, but arrogant.

The sound of applause cut through her reverie, a hot knife through smooth butter, and when he lent over to kiss her cheek she blushed. All these years –harsher to her than to him – and he could still make her weak in the knees like a teenager in love.

But when she locked eyes with him as he pulled away, she saw the realization that while they had a decade to grow differently, maybe they could find ways to grow together from today forward. Perhaps there was still hope for her, for him, for them all.

He was assaulted with the knowledge that even with ten years of hard living between, her skin was still as soft as he remembered it to be.

Astounding.

 _ **Épilogue**_

They cut quite a picture in the warm Parisian sun. Odette seated at the iron table sipping tea, her cane hanging delicately off the back of her chair. A vision in lavender, she forwent a hat, soft tendrils of dark hair escaping the elegant bun. Felicie, in her crisp white dress that wafted with her movements and red slippers as striking as the shade of her hair, cooed softly into the wooden pram before them both.

An unexplainable yet completely expected feeling of love washed over Mérante in that moment, and he felt as though his heart might truly burst with the sensation. Everything they had endured, all the distrust and the heartbreak and the love, all of it was meant to lead them to this morning in the little garden of their apartment.

A gentle hand touched his elbow, and Mérante turned to see the youthful Victor smiling back at him. His goatee and mustache were growing out well and, much like every time he saw both Victor and Felicie, Mérante was struck with just how much they had both grown.

How they had all grown.

"Felicie, we need to get moving if we want to catch the train." Victor's deep voice broke the stillness, his deep tones further proof that time stands still for no man.

At the sound of his voice Felicie stood and turned, and the look adorning her features was breathtaking all on its own. The blooming smile she graced them with was light and lovely, and as she moved to face Odette it evolved into the love of child to parent.

"I wish you could come with me." The voice was neither soft nor subtle, and both Odette and Mérante were again reminded of an elephant.

"Don't be silly, how useful could I be in Brittany? Besides, it'll do you good to get out of the Opera house, out of Paris and into the country again. You've worked hard and deserve a break – both of you." Odette sent a loaded glance at Victor, who blushed and rubbed the back of his head with a chuckle. Conceding defeat, Felicie laughed with a nod and bent to hug the woman who had become so much more than a mentor and a teacher – a woman whom her heart recognizes as a mother.

"Now go, before the train leaves without you."

A friendly swat, a farewell into the pram and at the door, and the pair were gone.

At the soft cry from the buggy Louis moved forward, only to stop again at the sight of Odette standing with very minor difficulty. Bending over she reached within and pulled out a bundle of yellow fabric, wiggling limbs and a head with dark hair. Resting the child on her shoulder, she swayed from side to side with a soft hum.

Turning her face she met his gaze, and again he was astounded with the emotion churning within his breast.

Love, he decided, was a most becoming look for a woman.

"You seemed almost eager to see them go." He observed casually, strolling into the garden to kiss her cheek.

"Now what reason could I possibly have for seeing my ward off to Brittany for a least two weeks? I should be devastated."

"And with no chaperone, why it's a scandal I cannot allow to besmirch the name of my good Opera House. How could you let her go with him unescorted?" He teased, taking the child from her arms to bounce as she sat back in her chair and picked up her tea.

"Why should I worry? If you recall we were never chaperoned, and no liberties were taken." She hid her smile behind the teacup while he sputtered and had the decency to look guilty.

"Ah, well, I'm sure his intentions are far more honorable. And I have it on good authority he is finally going to ask her to marry him while they are away." If he was waiting for his lovely wife to be enchanted with his clairvoyance, he was sorely mistaken.

"And I have it on good authority she is going to say yes." The fact that her voice didn't waver had him turn his gaze back on her, watching closely.

"You are alright with it, yes?" She looked at the flowers wistfully for a moment, before gracing him with an honest smile.

"Of course I am. I won't begrudge them the same marital bliss we have. Besides, it's not as if I'm losing a Ballerina – we're gaining an Inventor." With a laugh at his gobsmacked expression, Odette stood and took her child back into her arms.

"Come along my little Vianne, we need to get you cleaned up and ready to go. Lessons start in one hour." Taking her cane from the back of her chair, Odette passed along the stones to the door with limp a ghost of what it used to be. At the frame she paused and turned to her husband with a radiant smile on her face.

"Bring the pushchair Louis – the tea set will survive getting wet, but I don't want the pram ruined." Looking to the morning sky transitioning to afternoon, and seeing not a single cloud, he took a few steps forward.

"But there's no rain expected."

If ever a woman had perfected the art of looking down her nose at her husband, then Odette Mérante must be she. Swiftly her pointed look morphed into one that he could only describe as enlightened.

"Don't be daft. The rain is just as expected as the sunshine. Now hurry up, I want to get there with enough time to hand Vianne off to Pedro before the girls see us and get distracted."

And just like she disappeared into the apartment with a swish of her skirts, leaving the door open for him. With a light chuckle Mérante took the handle of the buggy in his hands and began pushing it towards the entrance. A feeling washed over him that Odette hadn't been talking about the weather, but something far more profound.

Yet as he reached the door the soft patter of a light rain on his cheeks, corroborated by the delicate tinkling of raindrops on fine china, had him reconsidering. Were women always one step ahead?

Astounding.

 _ **~Fin~**_


End file.
